Quotations and aphorisms by Ambrose Bierce:

Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.~Ambrose Bierce

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The covers of this book are too far apart.~Ambrose Bierce

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Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.~Ambrose Bierce

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All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher.~Ambrose Bierce

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Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.~Ambrose Bierce

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Belladonna, n.: In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of the essential identity of the two tongues.~Ambrose Bierce

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Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.~Ambrose Bierce

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Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.~Ambrose Bierce

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Abscond - to move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.~Ambrose Bierce

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Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.~Ambrose Bierce

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Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.~Ambrose Bierce

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Erudition - dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.~Ambrose Bierce

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Coward: One who, in a perilous emergency, thinks with his legs.~Ambrose Bierce

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Enthusiasm - a distemper of youth, curable by small doses of repentance in connection with outward applications of experience.~Ambrose Bierce

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Fork: An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth.~Ambrose Bierce

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Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.~Ambrose Bierce

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Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.~Ambrose Bierce

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Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.~Ambrose Bierce

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Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.~Ambrose Bierce

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Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.~Ambrose Bierce

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Curiosity, n. An objectionable quality of the female mind. The desire to know whether or not a woman is cursed with curiosity is one of the most active and insatiable passions of the masculine soul.~Ambrose Bierce

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Pray: To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.~Ambrose Bierce

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Vote: the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.~Ambrose Bierce

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Happiness: an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.~Ambrose Bierce

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Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.~Ambrose Bierce

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Alien - an American sovereign in his probationary state.~Ambrose Bierce

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Insurance - an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.~Ambrose Bierce

Bacchus, n.: A convenient deity invented by the ancients as an excuse for getting drunk.~Ambrose Bierce

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A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms agains himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.~Ambrose Bierce

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Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left.~Ambrose Bierce

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Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.~Ambrose Bierce

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Life - a spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.~Ambrose Bierce

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In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.~Ambrose Bierce

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Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from a man who did not particularly care to trace his own.~Ambrose Bierce

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The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.~Ambrose Bierce

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Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills.~Ambrose Bierce

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Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.~Ambrose Bierce

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Immortality: A toy which people cry for, And on their knees apply for, Dispute, contend and lie for, And if allowed Would be right proud Eternally to die for.~Ambrose Bierce

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Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.~Ambrose Bierce

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Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.~Ambrose Bierce

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Philosophy: A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.~Ambrose Bierce

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Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.~Ambrose Bierce

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Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.~Ambrose Bierce

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Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.~Ambrose Bierce

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Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.~Ambrose Bierce

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Doubt is the father of invention.~Ambrose Bierce

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Ardor, n. The quality that distinguishes love without knowledge.~Ambrose Bierce

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Saint: A dead sinner revised and edited.~Ambrose Bierce

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The small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify we give the name of knowledge.~Ambrose Bierce

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I never said all Democrats were saloonkeepers. What I said was that all saloonkeepers are Democrats.~Ambrose Bierce

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Laziness. Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.~Ambrose Bierce

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To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.~Ambrose Bierce

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Doubt begins only at the last frontiers of what is possible.~Ambrose Bierce

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Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.~Ambrose Bierce

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There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.~Ambrose Bierce

Impartial - unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.~Ambrose Bierce

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Beauty, n: the power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.~Ambrose Bierce

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Land: A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure.~Ambrose Bierce

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The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.~Ambrose Bierce

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Cabbage: a familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.~Ambrose Bierce

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We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.~Ambrose Bierce

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Convent - a place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.~Ambrose Bierce

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Destiny: A tyrant's authority for crime and a fool's excuse for failure.~Ambrose Bierce

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Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.~Ambrose Bierce

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Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.~Ambrose Bierce

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Compromise, n. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.~Ambrose Bierce

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What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.~Ambrose Bierce

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Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.~Ambrose Bierce

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Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.~Ambrose Bierce

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The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff.~Ambrose Bierce

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Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.~Ambrose Bierce

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Genius - to know without having learned; to draw just conclusions from unknown premises; to discern the soul of things.~Ambrose Bierce

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Creditor. One of a tribe of savages dwelling beyond the Financial Straits and dreaded for their desolating incursions.~Ambrose Bierce

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Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.~Ambrose Bierce

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Sabbath - a weekly festival having its origin in the fact that God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.~Ambrose Bierce

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War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.~Ambrose Bierce

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Spring beckons! All things to the call respond; the trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.~Ambrose Bierce

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The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations.~Ambrose Bierce

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Battle, n., A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would not yield to the tongue.~Ambrose Bierce

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Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.~Ambrose Bierce

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Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.~Ambrose Bierce

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What is a democrat? One who believes that the republicans have ruined the country. What is a republican? One who believes that the democrats would ruin the country.~Ambrose Bierce

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Divorce: a resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.~Ambrose Bierce

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Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.~Ambrose Bierce

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Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver.~Ambrose Bierce

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Doubt, indulged and cherished, is in danger of becoming denial; but if honest, and bent on thorough investigation, it may soon lead to full establishment of the truth.~Ambrose Bierce

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Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.~Ambrose Bierce

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Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.~Ambrose Bierce

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Consul - in American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.~Ambrose Bierce

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Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.~Ambrose Bierce

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To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.~Ambrose Bierce

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Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.~Ambrose Bierce

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We submit to the majority because we have to. But we are not compelled to call our attitude of subjection a posture of respect.~Ambrose Bierce

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Wit - the salt with which the American humorist spoils his intellectual cookery by leaving it out.~Ambrose Bierce

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Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.~Ambrose Bierce

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When you doubt, abstain.~Ambrose Bierce

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Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.~Ambrose Bierce

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Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.~Ambrose Bierce

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Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.~Ambrose Bierce

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Friendless. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.~Ambrose Bierce

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Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.~Ambrose Bierce

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Jealous, adj. Unduly concerned about the preservation of that which can be lost only if not worth keeping.~Ambrose Bierce

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Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.~Ambrose Bierce

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Consult: To seek approval for a course of action already decided upon.~Ambrose Bierce